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Craigslist Scammer

I'm sure that most of us here who have posted an ad on Craigslist to sell higher end electronics have had the experience with (predominantly) Nigerian scammers. You can spot them (like a turd in a punchbowl) with their tiresome copy/paste emails, and normally one will either write them back with a few 4 letter words or just delete the email.

When I first identified these emails, I used to reply with a message stating that (i.e.) my computer had some superficial blemishes and I wnted to make sure that they were ok with it, so I would send them a link to a web page with a script that would email me their IP address once they've viewed the page. 99.999% of the time it would resolve to either a West African IP or a satellite ISP.

So low and behold, the scammers became so common place that I figured out quickly that my time could be spent otherwise. I would still write them back telling them to die a slow death and goto hell on a razor-blade slip-n-slide and would never hear back from them again (at least with the credentials they used).

Yesterday I posted an ad, got a response, replied, and then got the common copy/paste scam mail. I replied back to the scammer and added a P.S asking if people were still dumb enough to fall for the crap they deal. I got a response, and it read:

Code:

yes sir your usa people are still falling i still collected one
brand new laptop yesterday here in nigeria so i like your own too
and i did no knew that you not maga tyhanks long life for nigeria
guys because we have a lot experience.. si logomn bnvdewyuhgtcb
cdrjhb.lopjmn

"I am from Nigeria and I'm poor. Will someone please donate me a laptop so I can Crack DA WEP?"

Something like this??

Nope, more like the following .....

Hello
I have made out my payment to you for this item purchase (eBAY Listing Number)So check your mail for the comfirmation mail from paypal.i have included $200.00 for the shipping fees all you just have to do is for you to drive down to any USPS POST office near you and have the item shipped out today before 2.00pm and i will like you to ship the item with one of the fastest shipping overnight air class mail ..and after shipment you will be given a shipment tracking number you are to ship and send the shipment tracking number to p.a.ypal.customer.care@emailaccount.com for verification then your account will be updated..

Hello
I have made out my payment to you for this item purchase (eBAY Listing Number)So check your mail for the comfirmation mail from paypal.i have included $200.00 for the shipping fees all you just have to do is for you to drive down to any USPS POST office near you and have the item shipped out today before 2.00pm and i will like you to ship the item with one of the fastest shipping overnight air class mail ..and after shipment you will be given a shipment tracking number you are to ship and send the shipment tracking number to p.a.ypal.customer.care@emailaccount.com for verification then your account will be updated..

So, say I'm selling an item that takes 200 bucks to ship. This guy will send me this in my eBay mail?? And I go look in my "regular e-mail" and I see confirmation email from "paypal"??...which makes me think that this guy actually sent me money? Am I getting any of this right?? ...so I go ship it, and go to p.a.ypal.customer.care@emailaccount.com with my tracking number....but let me get it...... p.a.ypal.customer.care@emailaccount.com doesnt let you put in a tracking number?

Sorry, but I have never seen a scam on eBay or Craigslist before. I use to get the "I'm a rich guy from Nigeria...please accept my 20,000 for letting me use your US bank to make a wire transfer"..lol. But never knew people had balls big enough to actually plug in a real shipping address. Cant they track them down with that tracking number??

Nigerians in Belfast and Dublin for years have been involved in credit card scams. Bob Marleys groupee is my hairdresser and she is from Africa herself, she told me that Nigerians are the worst people in Africa and that they give Africans a bad name with all the con's and scams they pull off.

The way the Ebay/Craiglist scam works is a variation on a fake cheque scheme... mostly they don't care about the merchandise being sold.

They send you a "cheque" for £10,000 but your item is only listed for £1,000. You are supposed (and people do) to send them the balance into a bank account or via Westrn Union. The cheques are usually top quality, and will not be detected until your bank actually sends it to the "originating" bank, and hey prest.. it's fake. You are then left with -£9000 and a probable conviction for Cheque Fraud.

I have several large (£50,000+) framed "cheques" on my wall. I tell them I spent it on cars, drugs, loose women etc, and watch them go totally and utterly mental...

I have a fair amount of Death threats and Voodoo Curses.

Oh, 419eater was recently going through a nasty DoS attack, so it may not function (I don't go there much, but I have fun with my Nigerian "pets" all the same)

I have several large (£50,000+) framed "cheques" on my wall. I tell them I spent it on cars, drugs, loose women etc, and watch them go totally and utterly mental...

I have a fair amount of Death threats and Voodoo Curses.

Brilliant!!!

@xploitz -

Here is another example of the common tune the scammers sing in replying to ads that I have put on Craigslist (for my notebook):

"Thanks for the mail and i will be commencing with the payment of this item of yours through (AlertPay International Money Order) Online.....So, all i will be needing for the payment to proceed is your full name and address,phone number and the e-mail address where you want the confirmation of the payment to be sent... So i will offer you $1,500.00 for the item so that you can remove the posting as soon as possible...Moreso, the shipping cost will be handled by me which you will not be charge a penny for that as soon as the payment has been confirmed, i wil email you the shipping documents you will paste on the package which you will have the procedure to follow above it.Get back to me as soon as you get this message so that i can order AlertPay to proceed with the payment....
Best Regards"

They used to actually use FedEx to do a prepaid pickup. The lesson to follow is just as CL advises.

Funny how I start a thread about an official charity and it gets turned into a 419 discussion. An average person reading this thread will think that this thread is labeling ihackcharities.org as a 419'er...it is not.

But this thread is about 419'ers. I mentioned it in your thread in hope that the computers being shipped over to Africa aren't getting into the wrong hands.

BTW, anyone else notice the level of spam hitting email servers in the states has dropped off sharply since those three under water cables were cut?

A third party security audit is the IT equivalent of a colonoscopy. It's long, intrusive, very uncomfortable, and when it's done, you'll have seen things you really didn't want to see, and you'll never forget that you've had one.